Day 19: Oxford

The thing that fascinates me about England, and Europe as a whole, is how old everything is. In the US something built 100, 200, 300 years ago is pretty old. Here that is practically new! I spent my Saturday at Oxford University which was established in the twelfth century- before America had even been conceived of by anyone but the Native Americans. It is the oldest university in the English speaking world. For almost a thousand years Oxford and Cambridge were the only universities in England (UCL was the third, founded in 1826). This is a picture of the Oxford Cathedral, the first and oldest Oxford building. This is where the monks first hung out and gave lectures on theology in the 1100's. This building is three times as old as America!
Oxford is less then an hour's train ride from London, the round trip cost us only ten pounds (thanks to my gift at finding deals). We took a tour of the University, which is absolutly gigantic. Oxford is set up very differently then most American schools. It consists of 39 different colleges which run pretty independently of each other under the umbrella organization of the University. Most of the colleges a closed off to anyone but students, so we could only see the outsides of the buildings. We could peer through the gates of the more famous ones like Trinity College and Christ Church College. Our tour did take us through Jesus College, which is only about 500 years old. It was beautiful, this is a picture of one of the courtyards. The colleges are each pretty small, around 500 people, and are responsible to the housing, feeding and education of the students. The University of London, which UCL is a part of, is set up similarly though on a much larger scale.
Everything in Oxford was richly beautiful. The buildings were dripping with rich little details like gargoyles, crests and grotesques. Nothing is modest, everything is extravagant. The Bodleian library is one of the largest in Britain and the original building, left, is from the middle ages. We also saw several spots which were used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies, although we couldn't get into Christ Church college where they film the great hall scenes.
My favorite part of Oxford was visiting the Eagle and Child pub, where CS Lewis and JR Tolkein would hang out together and read each other's works. We had lunch there (my friends are really good at humoring me) and sat by the fireplace, pretty much exactly where those two would have. A lot of famous writers are associated with Oxford including Lewis Carrol, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Wilde, WH Auden, Percy Byshe Shelley and John Donne. I also insisted we visit the giant bookstore on campus, which is over 6 miles in length I'm told. I picked up a copy of Alice and Wonderland, which I have been lusting after since my visit to the British Library. What better place to get one then where Carrol actually invented the story right?